Kingfish: Clarksdale’s Next Superstar – Mississippi Roads

[Music] the blue front cafe in bentonia is so significant to blues in mississippi that it has its own blues trail marker right out front over the decades a lot of musicians have come through here skip jane sunny boy williamson and of course the owner jimmy duck holmes jimmy holmes by the way has been here since 1948 when the place opened and he's one of the last people to play the bentonia style blues now in our next story we're going to meet a young man who has already developed his own version of blues [Music] i was born in clarksville honestly it's boring honestly i'm just going to tell you man this boy man like i said uh it's a basic town that's just but it's filled with a bunch of history being from here of course you're gonna have a love for music because you know this is a very historic town so uh here you know when you're like 15 or 16 is either play ball or do music and as you can see what i chose i chose music you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] i think i was like five i was uh at home with my dad and we're watching this pbs thing on muddy waters and um he was telling me about muddy wars and everything and i didn't even know what blues was honestly you know like i said because around that time i was i was listening to gospel music and stuff you know we came here to the museum and if you were from clarksville you could come and do the museum for free they were like a big influence to him so we came every day in fact we lived right behind the museum we walked over he took the lessons i remember when he first came around i had i didn't realize it was him at first but every time i was driving my car home from work i would see this kid after school always on his porch playing the guitar every day i didn't uh put it together that that was the same kid he just showed up in class one day and i just remember how hard he practiced and how serious he was i knew he was gonna you know be something it went from one or two days of the week of just studying things to seven days of the week just studying music i mean you all obsessed with it he was just sitting in front of the computer just studying music you can tell when somebody goes home and they practice every day in between until the next time they come back to class and you know it's that's the kind of kid he was practicing hard every day [Music] so that's the one thing that nobody gets to see you know nobody gets to see all the hours that you spend practicing on your instrument they just get to see for that couple hours that you're on stage they don't see the hundreds and thousands of hours of hard work that you put in [Music] like outside of music honestly man i'm going to tell the truth i'm like a normal 18 year old i wake up at five o'clock every day you know to get ready for school and maybe like when i wake up 30 minutes is probably playing guitar or watching a video and trying to study that lick off that video and then get ready for school go to school and think about music sometimes while i'm doing my work and then come home more guitar more guitar until i go to sleep when i saw him when it got to the point he started doing this all the time every day of the week i knew it was something serious i knew this was something that chris dawn wanted to do around sixth grade my parents got a divorce and uh we became homeless and we didn't have anywhere to go for like a couple of months man it took a lot out of chris done it took a lot out of me it was humiliating we learned to deal with it and i think that was the first time he started shutting down and just wouldn't talk anymore when i got to sixth grade um i started getting bullied you know if you notice i'm not what the average 18 year old should look like and i started getting my bulletin on my appearance and everything and so i was i was going through like a very depressing state he just when he got to junior high and he started getting bullied and his music got better and it seemed like he took the frustration out on on the [Music] guitar people say young kids can't get the blues but um nah that that that's not true because i'm a i'm an example i'm a prime example man that they care i think the best blues are the songs that are just downright depressing you know that's all what songs are there's stuff about life you know life is the greatest inspiration we can use when doing something like that like going to see a band and just to see the excitement and the fun they're having on stage and i've always wanted to have that feeling so you know i'm doing it now [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thanks for joining us if you like what you see subscribe to mississippi public broadcasting till next time i'll be seeing you on mississippi roads [Music]

Channel: Mississippi Public Broadcasting

Views: 808

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: mpb, etv, MPBOnline, MPBTV, MPB TV, Mississippi PBS, NPR, Mississippi, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, MSETV, The Sipp, Documentary, Deep South, Think Radio, Podcast, Live Stream, Mississippi Television, Mississippi Radio, MPB Television, MPB Think Radio, Mississippi Podcast, PBS Mississippi, PBS, Kingfish, Clarksdale, Delta, Mississippi Delta, Guitar, Guitarist, Blues, Blues Music, Delta Blues, Keb Mo, Eric Gales, Buddy Guy, Grammy, Alligator Records, Blues Museum, Guitar Solo, Music

Id: WvbhNv2KHjo

Length: 7min 46sec (466 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 15 2021